Chapter 4He Killed Our Daughters For Her

The man’s voice was rough with lust. “I’ll be gentle. It’s fine. Shh, baby. I would never do anything to hurt our little one.”

A moment later, the unmistakable sounds of their lovemaking echoed through the house.

They were in our bedroom. I couldn’t go in to pack. So I just stood there in the foyer, frozen, torturing myself by listening to every obscene sound.

I don’t know how long passed before they finally emerged.

The moment Victoria saw me, a look of undisguised triumph flashed in her eyes.

“Oh, Reagan, you’re back! You were so quiet, we didn’t even know you were here. It’s all Ethan’s fault,” she purred, clinging to his arm. “I told him no, but he just insisted. You know how he is.”

Ethan stood beside her, his hand possessively on her waist. “Why are you explaining anything to her? She’s a nobody.” He leaned down and kissed Victoria’s temple. “Come on, let’s go. We have that appointment with the OB-GYN. We need to make sure our baby is healthy and safe.”

Throughout it all, Ethan never once looked at me. His world contained only Victoria.

I stepped aside, calmly clearing a path for them to the door.

As he passed me, his gaze finally fell on the two small boxes in my arms.

“What is that garbage?” he said with a frown of disgust. “It’s filthy. Throw it out.”

With that, he wrapped his arm around Victoria and walked out the door.

I looked down at the boxes in my arms, my vision blurring.

“He wasn’t talking about you,” I whispered to them. “Don’t be sad. You’re Mommy’s treasures. You are not garbage.”

After carefully placing their ashes on the table, I began to pack.

Clothes, toys, dinnerware, crayons.

When I got to the small desk in their playroom, I found a framed picture. It was a family photo, but only the three of us were in it. There was no Ethan.

With a trembling hand, I removed the photo from its frame.

On the picture, one of my daughters had drawn a stick figure of a man. Next to it, in the clumsy handwriting of a child, were three words.

Daddy loves Mommy.

Next to the words, she had drawn a tiny heart.

That’s when I finally broke. I clutched the photograph to my chest and wailed, the sound raw and broken.

In the five years I had raised them alone, no matter what passed between Ethan and me, I had never said a single bad word about him in front of our daughters.

But children are perceptive. They knew. They saw that their father did not love their mother.

It was dark by the time I finished packing. I watched as the moving company loaded the last of the boxes onto their truck.

“Is that everything, Ms. Scott?” the mover asked.

I shook my head, turned, and walked back inside. On the coffee table, I placed the divorce papers I had already signed.

As I left the house for the last time, I held the two boxes close. A strange sense of peace settled over me.

After a moment of silence, I took out my phone, removed the SIM card, snapped it in two, and tossed the pieces out the car window.

Meanwhile, at the Lockwood Medical Center, Arthur and Sophie had arrived, having tracked down Ethan and Victoria during their appointment.

The moment Ethan saw his grandfather and sister, his face darkened.

“Does Reagan have no shame?” he muttered to Victoria. “Plays the saint at home and then calls them to chase me down at the hospital. She’s disgusting…”

Before he could finish, Arthur’s hand cracked across his face with a sound that echoed in the corridor.

“You degenerate!” the old man bellowed, his voice shaking with fury. “You murder your own children and you have the nerve to bring your mistress here for a checkup? How did my family produce something so heartless, so rotten to the core?”

Ethan staggered back, stunned.

“What… What did you say?”